Book excerpts:

It could be somewhat off-putting, but design patterns are just convenient ways of reusing object-oriented code between projects and between programmers. The idea behind design patterns is simple -- write down and catalog common interactions between objects that programmers have frequently found useful.

Design Patterns is a catalog of 23 generally useful patterns for writing object-oriented software. It is written as a catalog with short examples and substantial discussions of how the patterns can be constructed and applied. Each of the 23 patterns is presented with at least one complete, visual Java program.

Nearly all of the example programs in this book use the JFC to produce the interfaces the example code. Since not everyone may be familiar with these classes, and since the the intend is to build some basic classes from the JFC to use throughout the examples, there will be a short break after introducing the creational patterns and the readers will spend a chapter introducing the JFC. While the chapter is not a complete tutorial in every aspect of the JFC, it does introduce the most useful interface controls and shows how to use them.